Though the 3/4 of R.E.M. who are not Michael Stipereunited in 2013 on stage, Michael hadn't performed a set since that band broke up... until last night (12/29). He played a surprise six-song opening set at Patti Smith's first of two year-end shows at Webster Hall, playing a few R.E.M. songs and a few covers, including one of Perfume Genius' "Hood." You may remember that Michael joined Patti on stage at her 2011 New Year's Eve show, but this time was a full set. Slicing Up Eyeballs has audio and video from his set which you can check out below.

Patti does it again tonight (12/30) which is sold out. Will another special guest open?

No rain, a bit of sun (if only briefly) and finally a day party outside to start Day Four (Saturday) of Pop Montreal (catch up with day 1, day 2 and day 3).

The Notman House had the grill up and running and the speakers loud enough I could clearly hear the first band of the day, Edmonton's The Whitsundays, in my room at the Opus Hotel across the street. People lined up for free pulled pork and/or lentil sandwiches, sipped beer, listened to the Edmonton quartet's opening set (a solid, catchy blend of garage rock/pop) or milled about the house. It was an eclectic mix of people with little kids running around with their faces painted and even greeting people as they made their way up the Notman House front steps. It felt like a party which the weather managed to kill off on Thursday and Friday.

Stuck around for a really entertaining set by another Edmonton band, Hot Panda, before catching the bus (free bus pass was a godsend) to catch Think About Life and Diamond Rings at Divan Orange. I walked up to see people hanging out and then caught a glimpse of the sheet of paper stuck to the door. "Sold Out," it read. Or, since it was a free day party 'at capacity' was more apt. So, I hung around in hopes of getting in, not nearly as disappointed as some of those around me who were clearly crushed by that white sheet of paper.

Think About Life played before Diamond Rings, and it cleared out a bit after their set. Diamond Rings is the solo project of John O'Regan of the D'Urbervilles, and he shows a lot of promise. Synths, guitar and processed beats via laptop made for some simple, yet agreeable, dance numbers. Though his own dance moves were cringe-inducing.

The evening part of the program looked to be a long one with Deerhoof announced via Twitter as the 2am Loft Party headliner at Espace Reunion. It started off at Cabaret Mile End and the news that Doveman, who was slotted in between Mary Margaret O'Hara and Little Scream, was unable to make it out of New York and canceled. Instead, Little Scream's short but enchanting opening set complete with string accompaniment gave way to replacement act Becky Foon + Howl which was Little Scream, Becky Foon on cello Jess Robertson on violin and other members. But I opted to dash up Parc to another Cabaret, Playhouse, to see what was happening there. The official Pop Schedule said I was supposed to be catching Secretary City, but instead I found a seven-piece collective, Olenka and The Autumn Lovers, who were supposed to play Thursday but their van broke down on the way in from London, Ontario. The pleasant surprises to this point were few and far between but Olenka and Co. were the biggest. A solid dose of folk, chamber pop and Americana (can you call it that if they're Canadian?) wrapped in Eastern European themes (there's certainly a bit of Beirut in their sound) through Olenka Krakus's memories of Communist Poland.

Mary Margaret O'Hara

Then it was back to Mile End for Mary Margaret O'Hara. In the past 10 years you could probably count her number of public performances on two hands, with fingers left over. Whirling in with her band 20 minutes before they took the stage, everything was left to chance; even the setlist, which was drawn from a hat by O'Hara and audience members. Clearly uncomfortable on stage, O'Hara flittered about, cracked jokes, forgot lyrics and made others up as she went. Her voice was clear and powerful, and despite only releasing one proper record in the late eighties (Miss America), she is still roundly adored. Hers was one of the highlights of the festival, including a beautiful remembrance of Vic Chesnutt that led into "Somewhere Over The Rainbow." (vid below) It was emotional stuff and when Little Scream came out right after to do a free improv piece, she was wiping away tears. "I don't think I can sing," she said, "I'm crying too much."

Reluctantly, I left to make my way up to Espace Reunion and caught the last couple of songs by Buke & Gass and worked my way to the front for Deerhoof who despite going on at 2am were up for it and so was the audience. During the rowdier numbers, and between drummer Greg Saunier's awkward attempts to banter in French, the crowd surfed and repeatedly tumbled on to the stage with even a few people deciding to just sit on the stage in front of the band. When I left at 3am (after devouring some incredibly good tacos) they were still going, but with one day remaining the only thing I could think about was my hotel bed.

Elf Power is dedicated to the memory of dear friend, mentor, and close collaborator Vic Chesnutt, who committed suicide in late 2009. Chesnutt was long a guiding light in the close-knit Athens community; the Elves recorded a collaborative album, "Dark Developments," with Chesnutt in 2008 and toured extensively with him through the years. Elf Power's latest album found shape in the vacuum caused by Vic's loss, and finds the band exploring the void created by his departure.

Guest players on the album include Will Cullen Hart and Bill Doss of the Olivia Tremor Control, and Circulatory System's John Fernandes and Heather McIntosh. They also apparently used a mellotron that they borrowed from REM. Elephant 6 and Athens represent. You can listen to a song below.

Mark Linkous' dramatic, lush music often came from a place of pain. In 1996, Linkous actually died for two minutes after ingesting a dangerous mix of Valium and antidepressants while on tour in the U.K. behind Sparklehorse's 1995 debut Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot. He recovered, but the incident left him crippled -- he laid unconscious for 14 hours, cutting off circulation to his legs. He suffered a heart attack when medics attempted to straighten his legs, and underwent seven surgeries to save his damaged limbs. But after the incident, he recorded 1999's Good Morning Spider, 2001's It's A Wonderful Life and 2006's Dreamt for Light Years in the Belly of a Mountain. "For a while there, I was really scared that when I technically died -- which I guess I did for a few minutes -- that the part of my brain that allowed me my ability to write songs would be damaged," he told Rolling Stone in 1999.

Linkous most recently teamed up with Danger Mouse and director David Lynch on Dark Night of the Soul, a multimedia project that was tied up in legal issues with EMI; just this past week, Danger Mouse and the label resolved their dispute and agreed to let the album come out as it was originally intended. [Rolling Stone]

Sparklehorse co-wrote, co-composed and co-produced Dark Night of The Soul with Danger Mouse (whose most recent collaboration is called Broken Bells). Each Dark Night track features a special guest. Track 8 is Vic Chesnutt. That song & the full Dark Night tracklist, below...

we love you and miss you so much vic chesnutt...it was so amazing to know you and record an album with you and tour all over the world with you..you are the greatest songwriter and singer to ever come out of athens and it was an honor to play with you..i love these lyrics of vic's about water (this is from memory so it may be a little off)
......."The same water that the dinosaurs drank
.......is the same water that the Persian fleets sank in
.......The same water that moistened the primordial ooze
.......is now hammering on my metal porch roof"
....................andrew

Vic Chesnutt and Elf Power toured Europe together in 2009 in support of their collaborative album entitled Dark Developments that was released on Orange Twin Records in 2008. That tour was documented in a series of four videos that were shot mostly by Vic himself. Watch them below...

Vic Chesnutt (November 12, 1964 - December 25, 2009) was a singer-songwriter living in Athens, Georgia. He had been writing songs since he was five years old. Injured in a car accident in 1983, the paraplegic artist's first big breakthrough to commercial success came with the release of the tribute album Sweet Relief II: Gravity of the Situation.

Around 1985, Chesnutt moved to Athens and joined the band, The La-Di-Da's.[2] After leaving that group he began performing solo on a regular basis at the 40 Watt Club; it was there that he was spotted by Michael Stipe of R.E.M.; Stipe produced Chesnutt's first two albums, Little (1990) and West of Rome (1991). [Wikipedia]

"I flew around a little room once." A line from Supernatural.
He was just that. He possessed an unearthly energy and
yet was humanistic with the common man in mind. He was
entirely present and entirely somewhere else. A mystical
somewhere else. A child and an old guy as he called himself.
Before he made an album he said he was a bum. Now he
is in flight bumming round beyond the little room. With his
angel voice.

-Patti Smith dec 25 2009

-----

"in 1991 i moved to athens georgia in search of god, but what I discovered instead was vic chesnutt. hearing his music completely transformed the way i thought about writing songs, and i will forever be in his debt."

What this man was capable of was superhuman. Vic was brilliant, hilarious and necessary; his songs messages from the ether, uncensored. He developed a guitar style that allowed him to play bass, rhythm and lead in the same song -- this with the movement of only two fingers. His fluid timing was inimitable, his poetry untainted by influences. He was my best friend.

I never saw the wheelchair--it was invisible to me--but he did. When our dressing room was up a flight of stairs, he'd casually tell me that he'd meet me in the bar. When we both contracted the same illness, I told him it was the worst pain I'd ever felt. "I don't feel pain," he said. Of course. I'd forgotten. When I asked him to take a walk down the rain spattered sidewalk with me, he said his hands would get wet. Sitting on stage with him, I would request a song and he'd flip me off, which meant, "This finger won't work today." I saw him as unassailable--huge and wonderful, but I think Vic saw Vic as small, broken. And sad.

I don't know if I'll ever be able to listen to his music again, but I know how vital it is that others hear it. When I got the phone call I'd been dreading for the last fifteen years, I lost my balance. My whole being shifted to the left; I couldn't stand up without careening into the wall and I was freezing cold. I don't think I like this planet without Vic; I swore I would never live here without him. But what he left here is the sound of a life that pushed against its constraints, as all lives should. It's the sound of someone on fire. It makes this planet better.

And if I'm honest with myself, I admit that I still feel like he's here, but free of his constraints. Maybe now he really is huge. Unbroken. And happy.

Now at least three of them, Billboard included, have taken down their stories with no explanation. Billboard's redirects back to the story about the coma. Sorry for the confusion, post updated, and our prayers are with Vic and his family this Christmas.

He had been in a coma after taking an overdose of muscle relaxants earlier this week, said the family spokesman, Jem Cohen.

In a two-decade career, Mr. Chesnutt sang darkly comic and often disarmingly candid songs about death, vulnerability, and life's simple joys. A car accident when he was 18 left him a quadriplegic, but he has said that the accident focused him as a musician and a poet.

Vic Chesnutt, a singer-songwriter from Athens, Ga., beloved by fans and critics for his disarmingly open songs about mortality and pain, is in a coma, his family has confirmed. They did not say what caused the coma.

News about Mr. Chesnutt's condition spread through the Internet on Wednesday through posts on Twitter by the singer Kristin Hersh, who has played with him.

Mr. Chesnutt, 45, has been in a wheelchair since a car accident when he was 18, and was discovered in the late 1980s by Michael Stipe of R.E.M., who produced his first two albums. [NY Times]

Such sad news.

Vic spent much of October, November and December touring behind his new album At the Cut. His band consisted of Fugazi's Guy Picciotto and members of Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Silver Mt. Zion. Some recent live footage below...

Jonathan Richman is prepping the follow-up to his 2008 album Because Her Beauty Is Raw And Wild for a 2010 release on Vapor Records. Like his albums and tours of late, it will be a collaboration with drummer Tommy Larkins.

Coming up, Richman has a short West Coast tour lined up for December. In February, he will be playing three nights at Music Hall of Williamsburg on February 12th, 13th and 14th. Tickets go on sale Friday, November 20th at noon.

Richman and Larkins both produced and played on Vic Chesnutt's Skitter On Take-Off, which was the second album this year from Chesnutt (the other was At the Cut, which featured his touring band - Fugazi's Guy Picciotto and members of Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Silver Mt. Zion).

You can check out Because Her Beauty Is Raw And Wild's title track, posted above as a WAV. The file is uncompressed, to quote Vapor Records, "as a testament to the old uncompressed world of music meant to be experienced in a full range of decibels able to capture a work's intended depth."

Videos of Richman from this earlier year and all tour dates are below...

I would like to apologize to the Breeders for saying they would not sell out. I was a jerk about it and am truly sorry. I also apologize to their fans I may have offended with my stupid insensitive comments. Hope you liked the show.-Anonymous

"Come one come all-I'm work shopping new introductions bare with me-Welcome to the 18th installment of the Jay Porks Never Ending concert series. Tonight brings us to the 'Sold Out' Bowery Ballroom at 6 Delancey St. in New York City. The Bowery is a venue that's been on my radar for a while, considering that the Bowery owns(or at least sponsors) most of the venues I attend for concerts in the city. Tonight the headliner, the band I'm here to see is the one, the only, THE BREEDERS." [The Jay Porks Blog]

Co-Pixie Frank Black recently contributed a track to New Tales To Tell: A Tribute to Love and Rockets, which came out Tuesday (Aug 18th) on Justice Records. Frank's track from that, "All in My Mind", off L&R's 1986 album Express, is posted above for your downloading pleasure.

He didn't appear at the release party/show on August 18th at the Ben Sherman store in Soho, but he will be at the show for, another tribute comp, Ciao My Shining Star - The Songs of Mark Mulcahy, which happens Sunday, September 20th at the Music Hall of Williamsburg. Also appearing at the concert will be Joseph Arthur, David Berkeley and more. Non-musical guests (of sorts) include the premiere of the Thom Yorke video "All For The Best" and a reading by graphic novelist Ben Katchor. Tickets go on sale Friday, August 21st at noon.

That Mulcahy comp also has a slightly more personal story, via FrankBlack.net...

We have some sad news from a friend of our website and of FBF, Mark Mulcahy. Some of you might recognize the name as the singer/songwriter behind Miracle Legion and Polaris [of the soundtrack to Pete & Pete among other things], both of which featured CatholicsDavid McCafferey and Scott Boutier, or perhaps you recognize the name from the liner notes of Christmass, as Mark provided backing vocals for both "Radio Lizards" and "Don't Get Me Wrong." Or maybe, like me, you saw Mark open for the Pixies in Atlantic City in 2005. Regardless, Mark's wife recently passed away, leaving him as a single dad to two small children. Some friends and admirers, including our Frank Black Francis, have recorded some of Mark's songs for a tribute record called Ciao My Shining Star: The Songs of Mark Mulcahy.

That record comes out September 29th on Shout! Factory records, and includes contributions from The National, Thom Yorke, Michael Stipe, Dinosaur Jr., Vic Chesnutt and Elvis Perkins. In addition to the names on the tracklist, below, 20 additional cuts will be released digitally. Look for a London concert to be announced as well.

"This fall Vic Chesnutt will embark on a six-week North American tour in support of At the Cut, the Athens, GA-based singer-songwriter's latest effort. The touring band features Fugazi's Guy Picciotto and members of Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Silver Mt. Zion, all of whom collaborated with Chesnutt on the new album which is out September 22 on Constellation Records."

A track from the new record is posted above.

Vic Chesnutt's North American tour will be coming to NYC for a show on Monday, October 26th at the Bowery Ballroom and another the next night (10/27) at Music Hall of Williamsburg. Tickets for both go on AmEx presale Wednesday, July 29th at noon. General sale starts Friday, July 31st at noon. Clare and The Reasons open both gigs.

Jonathan Richman and Vic Chesnutt played Bowery Ballroom on Wednesday, June 17th. It was the second night of their two-show run (those stops are part of a nearly month-long tour). Signs posted throughout the venue warned that it'd be a hot night -- the night before Richman had requested the Bowery's air conditioner to be turned off mid-set for being too noisy.

Richman took the stage with drummer Tommy (Larkins), who kept the beat throughout with mallets and brushes. The accompaniment came in handy when Richman either sidled out in front of the microphones to address the crowd (the guitar was still audible upfront, but wasn't plugged in) or abandoned the axe entirely to dance alone on stage.

New song "My Affected Accent" was hilarious and gave the singer a chance to joke about youthful pretensions (and whip out a semi-faux Boston accent). Nearly all the tunes, including those off his newest record, 2008's Because Her Beauty Is Raw and Wild, were delivered on a totally un-ironic gut level. Some artists claim that their personal life doesn't inform their work (Woody Allen, for one). With Jonathan Richman, the opposite seems to be true. And it's similarly refreshing that his latter-day obsessions are a lot like his older ones -- albeit with more directness.

Both Modern Lovers song "Girl Friend" and Because Her Beauty track "No One Was Like Vermeer" could have been written on the same notebook. Both reference one of Richman's favorite topics -- art history -- and what one could only imagine is a favorite place, Boston's Museum of Fine Arts.

A mid-set discussion of the air conditioning situation provided a lighthearted segue into "When We Refuse to Suffer" (he also used that opportunity to ask for the AC to be turned back on). Through songs like "I Was Dancing in a Lesbian Bar," "Take Me to the Plaza," and "Let Her Go Into the Darkness," the Bowery was near silent in attention, minus some hand claps and joyful cheers. Jonathan left after set closer "My Baby Love Love Loves Me", but returned for another verse, then came back to play songs that included "Es Como El Pan" and "Springtime In New York." That last one especially harped on Richman's painterly drive to reframe everyday life as artistic and beautiful.

I missed Vic Chesnutt, but did see him talking to fans after the show. Those that did see his set said it was great. You can check out Vic as one of several guest singers on the new David Lynch/Danger Mouse/Sparklehorse (Mark Linkous) collaboration Dark Night of the Soul. That album, because of legal complications, is for sale only as a photo book and a blank CD-R. The music itself is streaming in full on NPR.

Does anyone have the setlists? More pictures of the headliner below...

Singers Jonathan Richman and Vic Chesnutt will go out on tour in June. That includes two NYC shows at the Bowery Ballroom - June 16th and 17th. Tickets for both go on sale Friday, March 27th at noon.

Richman and Chesnutt are both touring Europe separately right now. Richman with drummer Tommy Larkins (a pair of videos from their Majorca Spain performance on March 11th, 2009, below) and Chesnutt with Elf Power, the latter supporting their 2008 collaboration Dark Developments on Orange Twin Records - a record that has kept Elf Power + Chesnutt on the road essentially since last fall.

Throwing Muses with Kristen Hersh, Kimya Dawson, Ingrid Michaelson, Glenn Hansard of The Frames & Swell Season, Apples in Stereo, Tommy James and the Shondells, Jolie Holland, Keren Ann, Guster, The Db's, Bob Mould, Vic Chesnutt & Elf Power, Rachel Yamagata, Calexico, Patti Smith, and others will be singing R.E.M. songs at Carnegie Hall on March 11th. "100% of net proceeds to benefit musical education programs for underprivileged youth." Regular tickets are on sale at the venue's site. VIP tickets are available at the event's own site (thx rajohn)...

Your VIP ticket includes entrance to the private artist reception taking place at City Winery featuring cuisine designed by Mario Batali. Food will be delicious and the free wine will be flowing. Join the artists and friends in New York's first full winery and amazing new event space. The party will start immediately after the concert and go to 1am. With a full stage and sound system at City Winery, we expect many musical surprises!

Mario Batali and Michael Stipe are good friends. Michael Dorf is producing this whole event. Michael Dorf owns the new City Winery which is opening on New Years Eve which is the night Michael Dorf's old club Knitting Factory is closing (which Michael pointed out himself in that NY Press article).

"Athens' musical mainstaysVic Chesnutt and Elephant 6 originalsElf Power will hit the road this fall in support of their collaborative release, Dark Developments on Orange Twin Records. In addition to performing songs together from Dark Developments, Elf Power will open each night playing tunes from its most recent release In A Cave released earlier this year by Rykodisc."

They are actually going out together on two separate tours. The first tour starts tonight (Oct 29) in Oxford, MS and runs through November 22nd. The second tour starts January 21, 2009, hits Bowery Ballroom in NYC two days later (tickets) and ends with a homecoming show in Athens on February 7th. All dates below...